ce, almost fiendish exultation on his swart face, and the low mocking laugh that bursts from his thin lips can be likened to nothing save the chuckle of the Tempter in his hour of victory.

"So, my lord of Savignon, you have been meddling in politics, eh?" he murmurs, rubbing his lean, nervous hands together; "and to-night you die. Fool! Arch-fool! That you should be well-born, rich, high in favour at the Courts of France and Sachsenberg alike, did not suffice your greed, but you must wish to become a moulder of history besides, and like many another such before you, you have destroyed yourself! Oh, what a thing is man! Faugh!"

And with a sneer of contempt for the whole human race in general and the Marquis de Savignon in particular, Kuoni flings himself into the chair lately occupied by the King.

"To think," he goes on, "that a man about to become the husband of such a woman as the lady Louisa von Lichtenau should trifle and fence with death! By the Mass, Sire," he cries, raising his long